Mental health fear for detention kids

The first children's commissioner to speak freely with teenage asylum seekers in an Australian immigration detention centre has warned they are bored, uncertain and in danger of suffering poor mental health.

Tasmanian Commissioner for Children Aileen Ashford says the 137 unaccompanied minors held at the Pontville centre, 30km north of Hobart, fear they will 'go mental'.

Ms Ashford became the first children's commissioner in the country to be given free access to young asylum seekers when she visited the facility late last month.

She said the children, aged 13 to 17, have been given no explanation of why they were moved to Pontville and no written information about their status.

'The young men were worried that they would go mental with the worry about what would happen to them,' Ms Ashford told reporters in Hobart.

Ms Ashford said some were already beginning to show symptoms of mental health problems.

'I'd be very worried that they've raised issues about not sleeping, which is a mental health issue,' she said.

The commissioner spoke to 29 unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait who had been in detention for three to six months.

She said the detainees were receiving English lessons and had been out on day trips but were not attending school because of the practicalities of transporting them.

'Those young people are bored, they're worried about what's going to happen to them, they've got nothing in writing that explains it to them in their language ... and they want to be in the community,' Ms Ashford said.

'They all said we want to go to school. We want an education.'

Tasmanian education minister Nick McKim said plans were in place for the majority of the youths to attend technical college.

'The polytechnic was identified by the federal government given that the age of the unaccompanied minors is in the main 15 and above,' he said in a statement.

'The (education department) is in negotiations with (the immigration department) in relation to possible future cohorts of unaccompanied minors.'

Ms Ashford said the centre lacked the basic facility of a sports oval and detainees were suffering injuries trying to play soccer and cricket on a small patch of grass.

Pontville's adult asylum seekers were embraced by the local community, with many visiting the asylum seekers, but Ms Ashford said the children were yet to receive community visits.

She said she was concerned that only South Australia had an agreement with the federal government regarding child protection in detention centres.

'I think we'd be naive to think that abuse doesn't happen in society,' she said.

Australia's children's commissioners had called on the federal government to release unaccompanied minors into the community to honour obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Ms Ashford said.

'These kids haven't done anything wrong,' she said.

'They're not criminals.'

skynews.com.au